Miko:

My nose picked up a smell after two days of slicing and stepping; the circular metal device in my pocket aligned with the direction of the scent. Excitedly, I whipped my arm with fervor in a cross-like motion to clear a path. As I broke through the wall of branches, an opening with a stream of water appeared. Had I been able to hear, tracking the stream would have been easier. I had to crouch to get down to the stream, but my arm was tired from the constant swinging motion, so I settled at the tiny bar of stone. The smell was stronger, and I sniffed it out to my right, further up the stream. As I headed upstream, I cupped the water into my hands as it flowed and took several long slurps of the sweet water. There was moisture that built up on the trees, but it was difficult to drink. Several crossed sticks and burnt-up logs stood close by the stream that had been used for a fire in the last day or two. I poked at the ash with my disc to see if any embers still breathed, but all that remained was gray ash. The light was fading, and I hadn’t slept in fifty hours, so I decided to use the previous owner’s den as my own. Nothing here identified my brother as its habitant, but this was the closest I had come to seeing another, so I had to hope it was him. Nomen had never mentioned any others that stayed after the trials, but was it possible to live out here? He had told us that this place stole energy passively, so living out here would be too hard. That’s probably why the kingdoms never tried to inhabit these places. Mountain living was tricky as it is, but if your energy was sapped away too, that would make you too susceptible to sickness and make already hard living too challenging to continue. I let those thoughts fade with my sleep and tucked myself onto the cold stone with only what was left of my blanket covering me. Another campfire lay out before me but provided no warmth or light. A cruel sight…

When I woke, my forearms were under my chest, and my forehead pressed against the not-flat stone. I squeezed the fingers in both hands and stretched my left leg, extending it as far as possible to allow my body to wake up. My fingers rubbed at my eyes and fell towards my chin. Wait, I was moving all my fingers and a leg, I thought with widened eyes. This is new. I’m getting better! It was just my hand that moved on my left arm, but this was progress. As I sat up, the arm limped behind my shoulder with no control, but the fingers moved at my command. The bustling of the stream next to me filled my ears, and the leaves hummed against the wind; I could hear again as well.

Now that the sun was up, I had two options: follow the stream or see if there was a new cloud of smoke to follow. I decided to do the latter since it would be the more fruitful method, but if there was nothing to see, I could just follow the stream and hope that’s what Maleki was doing. My hand gripped a branch, and then I climbed up the tangled branches that formed a durable but swiveled form of a ladder. Branches and twigs swept across my face and smacked the outside of my arms, opening them up with minor scrapes as I pushed higher and higher. This tree was taller than others around it, but I needed to get up a little higher to see any smoke. Although the web of limbs and vines made climbing easier, they still required some skill to balance with as I got higher into the tree where the thinnest limbs were. Using my newly gained hand, I placed my left arm up higher by grabbing it with the right and allowed my fingers to clutch onto a branch above me. After that, I positioned my right hand and stepped onto the last branch I deemed safe to bear my weight. My heart scrambled as my mind thought about falling, but I threw away those thoughts with a deep breath. My head swiveled around on a ninety-degree angle, and then I spotted dark gray clouds that crept up above the tree line. Several hours of walking would get me there, but I would miss him if he had already started walking. From here, it looks like I can travel up the stream to get to that new campfire, but if I want to catch up to him, I will have to try and move during the night.

It took me five hours to get to the campsite. He seemed to be stopping at night, which meant I could catch up to him if I kept pushing through this dense forest in the dark. Who am I kidding? I can’t even keep up with him while at full speed during the day because of this stupid limp. He was injured from the mountain and tired from swimming, so maybe he had slowed down. Ugh, I must really be stupid if I think anything could slow my brother down. I can’t let the night slow me right now; that’s the only thing I have against him. While he rests, I’ll advance in the darkness. I had prodded around at his last campsite, but there were still no embers to make a torch with. If I can get there sooner this time, before he or the droplets put out the fire, I’ll have an easier time moving around.

That was a fool’s desire. I reached Maleki’s campsite two hours after sunrise and decided to take a break. My face, arms, and legs were cut in a hundred different places, with bruises on my forearms and thighs. Cool stream water brushed against my face, wiping away the dirt and skin-layer blood. The feeling woke me up, but it stung everywhere, all at once. On Maleki’s campfire sat the charred bones of some kind of small animal. He had eaten. I plucked away at the luminescent fruits during the night, but that was no meal. He had actually eaten. Picking away at the remnants, I searched for any crumb or piece of flesh that might have been missed, but he was diligent in his hunger. My belly demanded food, real food, but I had none to provide. There were no berries or nuts that grew in my path. Without sustenance, my body pleaded for sleep, but that could not be granted. If I rested now for, but even a moment, I would be losing valuable time that could be used to catch up. Damn it all. Rest tomorrow, Miko — just one more day and night of travel. With a pant in my chest, I rose to my feet and continued on the trek.

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There were no fish in these streams; it was too small to house anything big enough to eat anyway, so I wet my feet stomping through on occasion when the branches were too thick to cut with a single strike. Upon further inspection, My body needed energy, or my pace would slow. I had not considered it before, but I was desperate, so I started searching the bank and stream for any creatures that might lurk near the water. There were no tiny crabs or frogs, but there were some shells that stuck firmly to the rock like they were a part of it. As I pulled, the creature within tightened its grip on the stone. Using my disc, I pried the edge of the shell up and then between the shelled creature and the chalky white rock. Inspecting the creature, it appeared to be like a snail but more akin to a mollusk, which didn’t settle my apprehension about eating the thing. A sound rumbled in my belly, and I pulled all my thoughts away and used my teeth to pull out the cold flesh within. Disgusting! I’ll have to eat several more to make it worth it, though...Night fell again, and I felt better after eating something other than these luminescent mango limes. I’d like to say I had eaten worse, but they did do the trick as far as hunger goes. Their individual value was not very high, but there was enough of them to satisfy the bottom levels of my appetite.

If my basic math was correct, I should get to Maleki’s campsite an hour or so after he had already left. I felt more invigorated than I had before, so it’s possible that I can speed up my process of movement during the night. Cutting away and stepping tired me, but I let my mind wander as the muscle memory took over. I thought about our parents and the day they left. Those thoughts were usually pushed away since I had little want to bring them back, but this time, I had invited them instead. A memory of Maleki and I against a wooden fence took over. We were peering over it and at our parents, who were arguing about the contents of a letter. “This is the second one you have received and my first.” Our mother said with her auburn hair streaked with dark brown at the roots. She continued in a disheartened tone, “We cannot evade them forever. If we don’t answer, they will come here — if we don’t respond or show, there will be consequences.”

My father retorted with a prideful attitude, “Consequences be damned. I’ll not return, and neither will you.” His eyes met hers in anger. Even in that memory, I had tried to forget, but those eyes blacker than the night pierced through to me. Maleki often had to explain his stories of our parents, how they were, and what they looked like, but I didn’t have to try to remember those eyes of our father. Even when he wasn’t angry, those ever-dark eyes of his seemed to display the emotion in his voice instead.

Mother glanced at him without fear of his words. “You’ll risk this? If they find ou-”

“Do not speak to me like I am unaware, woman. Let them come. I can buy us time.” He stood off the bale of hay, index finger pointing like a sword at her throat.

She brought him into her bosom, disarming his anger for a moment and speaking softer to help guide her point, “You can, yes — for a time. They will be more insistent on the next occasion, and if you fight back too strongly, that invites more attention here.” They were two storms, and though our mother had eased his spirit this time, there were too many times she hadn’t. Each of their storms was violent and quick to rise, but she had grown better at preventing his.

Father sighed, slumping back onto the box of hay and resting his forehead against her belly and hands at her waist, “Resina, please…They need us here. I’m not a great man, but I am learning to be. They make me better.”

“I know, but they will be safer here, happier without-“Several tears broke through her calm demeanor. “Please, my love. Your parents will care for them better than we can; they already provide much.”

My father’s lanky figure burrowed further as he tried to hide his emotions, dropping his head into his palms. “What if we took them with us?”

“You’d separate them? They spend every waking hour together. We could each take one, but taking both is too risky.” Maleki and I locked eyes in worry and confusion but clung back to the conversation, hoping they would be dissuaded.

“It is too early to leave them. I had wished to give them a better life than I had. A fool I was, but more than that, a failure even with my time with them.” His grief peaked, and tears of his own wet our mother’s dress. They embraced each other until their emotions subsided. “One more week, Resina. Please. On your second letter, we shall venture.”

His timing was correct. Maleki and I rumored between each other for a week about what their conversation meant for them and us. We didn’t ask, and our parents didn’t tell; they simply enjoyed the week with us like it was a vacation. That was the happiest week we had ever had with them, but on the fourteenth sun, they broke the news directly to us. They decided to do it separately, Mother told me, and Father told Maleki. She had always treated me like a baby, even calling me so, since she was unwilling to relinquish the idea of me growing up. We had talked for a while, but little details of why they were leaving were shared with us. Instead, they tasked us with assisting our grandparents in their stead. When we finished talking, I overheard Father’s conversation with Maleki. He had charged my older brother with being strong for me as if he had already given up on me getting better. Our father had placed his own burdens on a child of only nine years, diving Maleki and further. Anger swelled in me, so I swiped away the memories with a hard cut at a thicker branch. Three more cuts performed in a motion like the letter X opened up the creek in front of me. Thirty feet ahead, with his back turned towards me, stood a figure with clothes torn and held together by loose sections. Two scratches were etched into their back and were visible through the cuts in the shirt. Finally, I had found him.